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OK, let's take a calm look at this, starting with why the cuts are looming. The sky-is-falling crowd has a point, but a limited one, and getting this right is important.

The reason these cuts could kick in five months from now is because Congress and the Obama administration agreed to them last year. Yes, the cuts provoking such angst today were willingly approved by both parties as the alternative if a congressional "supercommittee" couldn't find some way to reduce the deficit. The supercommittee then predictably did nothing, triggering the cuts.

The defense reductions would be harmful not so much for their size — about $55 billion each year for nine years — but for the way the Pentagon would be required to make them: mindlessly across the board, slashing crucial programs as well as ones that ought to be cut. The right way to make reductions this size is to phase them in, giving the Pentagon time to plan and more flexibility to choose what goes and what stays.

Here's the important thing, though: Defense spending has more than doubled since 9/11, and with the United States out of Iraq and planning to leave Afghanistan in 2014, there's room for reductions. This year's military outlays are expected to reach $716 billion, up from $294 billion in 2000. As troops come home and the fighting ends, it's time to cancel the post-9/11 blank check and think seriously about how big a military the nation can afford.

Defense contractors and their allies in Congress argue that the Pentagon is already absorbing significant cuts under the same agreement that spawned the supercommittee. True, but in the context of out-of-control deficits and a dangerous rise in the national debt, defense can do more.

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An analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that the post-9/11 spending surge was bigger in inflation-adjusted dollars than the buildups for the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. All three of those conflicts were followed by spending drawdowns that averaged about 37%. Today, plans call for a defense drawdown of about 8% over 10 years; adding a cutback the size of the one scheduled to start next year would bring that to 17%.

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Many of the same members of Congress who complain so loudly about the impending defense cuts repeatedly block the Pentagon from making smart reductions. The military suggested closing more unneeded military bases and raising the super-low premiums and copays for the Tricare health insurance program for military retirees. Congress wasn't interested, but it continues to insist on building planes, tanks and other hardware the Pentagon doesn't want.

The looming military cuts would no doubt be disruptive for the Pentagon, military personnel and people who work in defense plants. It would send a terrible message, however, if Congress simply kicks the deficit can down the road again.

Defense outlays, which represent about one-fifth of the federal budget, should be dealt with as part of a bipartisan "grand bargain" on long-term debt reduction that balances spending cuts and revenue increases. Such a plan fell apart last summer but could rise from the ashes after the election as members of Congress confront a "fiscal cliff" of tax and spending changes.

Lawmakers like to promise to punish themselves if they don't do their jobs. The honorable way out of this mess is for them to do what they promised in the first place.

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